Women: emotional leaders?

By Dr Tareq Rasheed
International Consultant and Trainer

There are six types of intelligences: analytical, environmental, musical, vocal, social and emotional. In many research articles, including Forbes’s “Are Men and Women Equally Emotionally Intelligent?”, women are classified as more emotionally intelligent than men in terms of empathy, interpersonal relationships and social responsibility; in other words, traits we associate with the general notion of emotion.

Men, on the other hand, lead the way in terms of stress tolerance, self-regard and assertiveness. In leadership (the act of influencing followers to achieve goals), one of the most crucial differences between men and women as leaders is differing traits within emotional intelligence. 

When it comes to emotions, children grow up to be more able to relate with their mothers than with their fathers. This is logical, as it is believed that mothers are primarily responsible for nurturing and caretaking during early infancy. The paternal role differs, as historically fathers would provide the family with financial stability and ensure the necessities of the family were met. These behavioural patterns reflect the way in which we view men and women as leaders.

The main differences concerning men and women as leaders are: 

Women

• Lead by empathy and are relationship- orientated

• Generally employ cooperation and participation

• Motivate the team through the transformational leadership approach according to the American Institute of Psychology, through moral incentives when goal setting

Men

• Lead by logic and assertiveness

• Depend mainly on power in decision-making

• Motivate the team using the transactional leadership approach of reward for successes and penalties for failures

In governmental positions, the trend is to assign women leaders in positions where social and emotional intelligences are core skills for employee-client relations. These include — exterior affairs, social development ministries and in human resource departments, customer relation management. While men would be assigned positions such as military, ministry of interior affairs, police, as well as the departments of finance, legal departments, as examples. While our neuro-anatomies differ in terms of what we bring to leadership positions, it should be noted that women and men are by no means restricted to the aforementioned job roles.

In general, emotional intelligence in leadership can be demonstrated by:

• Enhancing the self-awareness of each team member, and this is done usually in one-to-one sessions between team leader and team member. In motherhood, mothers help their kids to understand themselves and to hone their skills during the school years. Self-awareness is related to knowing the strengths and weaknesses, desires and motivators, fears and worries, and setting targets in life and work

• Helping team members to manage negative emotions easily; negative emotions include anger, sadness, worry, depression and boredom. Again, if we connect with motherhood, mothers are somewhat more capable of helping their kids to manage such emotions than fathers

• Communication with the team; a very crucial skill required for leadership. Leaders that do not master advanced communication skills with their teams will rarely manage to achieve their targets

The United Nations, in its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) for 2030, emphasises in its SDG#5, Gender Equality Basis, specifically the sub-goal SDG 5.5: To ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life. 

Let’s ascertain one thing — both men and women can lead. However, there are major differences in the leadership styles. Women, in principle, implement emotion-based strategies in positions of leadership.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine